Retailers often use promotional activities to increase the sales of their products. For instance, in the quick-service restaurant industry, restaurants often employ promotional items such as games in which the customer can receive instant prizes and/or collect game pieces in an effort to earn prizes. Such games commonly use game pieces which consumers either immediately return or collect and return for prizes (e.g, free beverages or food).
Traditionally, quick-service restaurants have delivered such game pieces to their customers in one of two ways. In connection with some prior promotions, restaurants have handed the games pieces to the patron upon completing the sale. Food and beverage containers have also been used to convey game pieces. In one existing form, a game piece consists of a flexible paper tab which is adhered to the side of a container (e.g., a cup). The game piece thus readily conforms to and smoothly lies over either a planar or non-planar surface of the container. The game pieces are designed to be peeled off the surface to reveal the prize won by the patron or to convey other information to the patron.
Inflexible promotional items such as game pieces and prizes do not generally conform to the surfaces of food and beverage containers. Thus, restaurants have traditionally distributed such game pieces apart from the containers. Quick-service restaurants, however, generally disfavor separate distribution because they cannot ensure that every customer receives a game piece with his or her purchase. Decoupling the game piece from the container can also present the risk that game pieces will be distributed without a product purchase.
In addition, there are numerous containers presently being used to hold hot or cold foods. For example, such containers include cups that are being used to feed liquids to children. One example of such cups are cups that contain covers to minimize spilling by children and are typically known as “spill-proof cups.” These “spill-proof cups” are typically used by children under the age of five. Typically, these cups are injection molded of high density polyethylene (“HDPE”) and are composed of a cup body and a removable screw-top or comparable lid. In use, the child typically places his/her lips around the spout, tilts the cup up and sucks out the liquid volume.
Another example of a container used to hold hot or cold foods (e.g. beer, coffee, tea and/or soda) is a mug or cup. For example, recent years has seen a considerable upsurge in the popularity of so-called “travel mugs”. A typical travel mug includes a container for a beverage and is fitted with a removable cover. Conventionally, the cover will be provided with a mouthpiece or an opening of limited size through which the beverage may be withdrawn by the user of the mug. This configuration allows considerable sloshing of the beverage within the mug without spilling because the limited size of the opening through the cover or the mouthpiece is such as to substantially confine all of the liquid. In one specific embodiment, the opening may be at the bottom of a recess in the cover. Thus, to the extent that a beverage may pass through the opening to the exterior of the mug and remain in the recess, it will drain back into the mug, again preventing the spilling of the beverage. In addition, the “travel mug” may be advertised as having insulation abilities.
Moreover, containers are also presently being used for drinking glasses for containing cold or hot drinks. Other containers are presently being used to handle hot liquids such as hot beverages, soup, and the like. These type of containers are presently being used in large quantities in the fast food and other industries requiring disposable containers.